THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR
MISS JENNIE TUPPER at the end of a week acknowledged to herself with an
uneasy sense of her own shortcomings that the task of keeping Mr. Skippy
Bedelle in the straight and narrow path was one beyond her limited
experience. It was not that she had lost confidence in her own
efficiency, but that she anxiously asked herself if she could afford the
time and the effort. Skippy was all for the better life and yielded at
once to her suggestions. The trouble was in his staying put, as it is
colloquially expressed. Each evening the cure was complete, but each
morning the conversation had to begin all over. The hold that his past
life had taken upon him was simply staggering and the hankering for the
excitement of the gambling table or the struggle against the narcotic
tyranny of the demon cigarette was such that at times she had to sit
long moments holding his storm-racked and shaking hand while he fought
bravely against the maddening appetite! And after a week of the closest
personal attention he had only cut down the allowance of cigarettes to
seven a day!
Now Miss Tupper was upright and God-fearing and self-respecting, and
though there was a difference of three years all in her favor, she,
unlike some of her sex, scorned the use of her personal attractions,
simply for the sake of a personal vanity, nor was she a collector of
male scalps. She was in a moral quandary of the most metaphysical
complexity. What should she do: shirk her evident moral responsibility
and allow a bravely battling human soul to sink into iniquity or
continue and permit a most susceptible youngster to immerse himself
deeper and deeper into a hopeless passion?
Each day she came to the task of regenerating Mr. Skippy Bedelle
resolved to conduct the proceedings on the grounds of the strictest
formality, and each evening she admitted to herself the failure. Yet
could she honestly blame herself? She gave him her female sewing-society
pin to wear not as a personal token but solely as a daily reminder of
the promises he had made to himself. She gave him a tie, a colored
handkerchief and the sweater she had just finished for another
destination. But each was given as a reward and marked a triumphant
progress in his fight to acquire a final mastery over himself. When,
however, Skippy brought up the question of a photograph, a crisis was
reached.
"I have never never given my picture to any man," she said firmly, and
the absence of sibilants made it doubly impressive. "And I never never
will. Bethideth, you know I would have to tell my mother."
They were sitting in the summer house at that romantic hour when the
first day stars arrive with the mosquitoes. It was always at such
moments that the craving was strongest. She had begun by holding his
wrist in a strong encircling clasp but the sight of his twitching
contorted fingers had been too much for her sensibilities and her hand
had slipped into a more intimate clasp.
"After all he's only a boy," she had said to herself.
"Jennie! how can you--don't you--do you realize all I'm doing--just for
you?" said Skippy, whose voice at such moments was not under control.
"No, no, you ought to do it for yourself, becauth it ith the right thing
to do, becauth it will make you feel stwonger and finer."
"Nope, it's you or nothing."
"Jack, you muthn't thay thuch thingth. I muthn't let you!"
"It is the first time I've ever cared what became of me," said Skippy
lugubriously. "You don't know what that pin means to me."
"But--"
"Do you realize what I'm going back to? Old associations, old habits and
a long, long, fight! And then there's Snorky. I've got to save him
too."
"But Jack--"
"I'm not asking for anything more than just your picture, nothing
more,--nothing that commits you to anything! But I do want that, I must
have that! I want to rise up every morning and remember and, and I want
to come back every night and know that I can face your eyes," said
Skippy warming up. "I say it must be a full face, not a profile, you
know."
"I haven't thaid I would," said Miss Jennie in dreadful perplexity.
"But you will."
There was a long silence.
"You will, won't you!"
"I--I will think it over," said Miss Tupper finally, remembering the
terrific report which her sister had brought her via Snorky Green. "I
will give you my dethition after thupper."
That evening, Skippy, excusing himself from Snorky, who was taking
Margarita to a lecture on the fauna and flora of Yucatan, set out for
the parsonage with a thumping heart. If the truth be told he was not
altogether convinced of the durability of his attraction for Miss
Jennie, but he was quite certain of one thing, if there was even a
sporting chance of Snorky's adding the blonde sister to his photographic
gallery in the communal room in the Kennedy House, he could never
confess failure! The state of his own emotion perplexed him. When he was
away, he could look on with a certain amused calm as though the whole
thing were but a fascinating game. Indeed, at times he felt gorgeously,
terrifically guilty, the gayest and blackest of black Lotharios. Yet no
sooner had he looked into the soft velvety eyes and felt the touch of
her warm fingers than he was certain, absolutely certain that his life's
decision had been made, that he wanted to stand forth as a man of the
strongest character, and slowly and patiently struggle upward to those
heights where serenely she would wait for him.
He consumed three cigarettes--rapidly and faithfully, to make up the
seven of the daily quota, mutually agreed upon; flicked the dust off his
shoes with his handkerchief, tightened his belt and his tie, and, having
fanned himself with his hat, found at last the courage to tread the
noisy gravel and ring the bell. On his way he had built up a dozen
eloquent conversations, but all memory of things tender and convincing
were forgotten as he ventured over the slippery floor of the parlor and
beheld at the side of Jennie a large blown-up, thin-haired male visitor
in ecclesiastical black, who was introduced to him as the Rev. Percy
Tuptale.
Intuition is a strange thing that fortunately returns to lovers,
drunkards and children in their hour of need. From the first touch of
her hand and the first look into her face Skippy knew that a crisis had
arrived. Mr. Tuptale was so placidly and professionally at ease and
Miss Tupper so nervously and unsibilantly conversational that the
conversation bubbled on like a kettle steaming in a distant room. He
nodded once or twice, Mr. Tuptale fingered a magazine while Jennie ran
on softening the s's.
"Something awful is going to happen," thought Skippy, staring at the
biblical engravings on the wall. "They're going to try to make me give
back that pin."
Miss Tupper stood up. Skippy stood up. Mr. Tuptale stood up.
"Jack, I have taken a therious, a vewy therious thep," said Miss Tupper
flushing. "I do want to help you tho much but, but I have thought, that
ith, I am afwaid I know tho little how. You may think it dweadful of
me--"
She paused and Skippy frozen to the marrow said icily,
"Yes, what is it?"
"I have gone to Mr. Tuptale--to Perthy for advithe. I, I had to."
"Excuse me," said Skippy loftily. "Is Mr. Tuptale, are you,--is he?"
"Well, yeth," said Jennie, blushing, while a smile spread enormously
over Mr. Tuptale's features.
"Oh!"
"You thee that ith why," said Jennie hastily, "and, oh Jack, I do want
you to talk to him, juth ath you talked to me. Tell him evwything. He
ith tho helpful and tho underthanding."
She swayed from one foot to another and glanced from the boy to the man,
undecided.
"Jennie, dear," said Mr. Tuptale with surgical ease, "I think
ahem--suppose you let us talk this over together. It would be easier,
wouldn't it?"
"Oh yeth, indeed!"
The next moment they were alone.
"And now my boy," said Mr. Tuptale blandly. "Come, sit down. Let's have
it out like man to man."
Skippy did not at once comply. He walked slowly around the red plush
rocker and then back to the bamboo fire-screen and rested his elbows
lightly upon it and glowered at the all-unconscious curate, murder in
his heart.
"Jennie is very fond of you, Jack," said Mr. Tuptale, caging his
fingers. "She has a warm and sympathetic nature, a big heart, and I can
quite understand how deeply concerned she is in the brave fight you are
making. I want you to accept me as a friend, a real friend. I know men
and I know what temptations are, early associations, acquired habits.
Jack, my boy, there is nothing really wrong in you. I saw that the
moment you came into the room."
"Who said there was--pray?" said Skippy, whose hands were trembling with
rage.
Mr. Tuptale looked up quickly, frowned and said:
"Jennie has told me all--naturally."
"She told you I gambled."
"She did."
"She told you I drank, and she told you I smoked."
"She did, of course, and I consider it was her duty to do so."
"Well is there anything wrong in that, I ask you?"
"Anything wrong in gambling, drunkenness, steeping oneself with tobacco
until your hand shakes like a leaf?" said Mr. Tuptale, rising.
"Exactly. Do you know your ten commandments, sir?"
"Are you insulting me, sir?" said the curate, yielding to a perfectly
natural irritation.
"Kindly point out to me in the ten commandments where any habit of mine
is forbidden," said Skippy with the most impressive of declamatory
attitudes.
Mr. Tuptale's jaw dropped, twice he tried to answer and twice remained
inarticulate.
Skippy possessed himself of his hat and bowed in scorn.
"You will kindly restore to Miss Tupper this pin," he said, producing it
after a struggle with his tie. "Also inform her that I shall immediately
send back to her other articles I need not now specify. Thank you for
your interest in my case but it is quite unnecessary--quite. I can stand
by the ten commandments. Good night."
He went down the scrunching gravel and slammed the gate.
"And there is more, sir," he exclaimed aloud, forgetting that he was now
alone. "One thing more. You can tell Miss Tupper that even among the
lowest of my associates, gamblers and drunkards and race-track sharks
though they be, a promise given is sacred, sacred, sir, and the man who
breaks it is, is, is--"
But here rage quite overtook him and he picked up a stone and flung it
at an inoffensive tree.
"It's all Snorky!" he said in the swift progress of moods. "I knew he'd
overdo it! Holy Mike, what in Sam Hill did he tell Margarita! He must
have--he--" But again imagination failed him and he proceeded on his
way, fists sunk in his pockets, sliding along gloomy lanes.
"And I believed I had met a good woman!" he said bitterly. "Faugh,
they're all alike. Well, I don't care what does become of me. Serve her
right if I went plump to the bad. And by jingo, I'll do it too!"
Whereupon, having resolved upon a life of crime, he plunged his hand
into his pocket and cast from him the now unnecessary cigarettes!